Mobile and wireless communications technology is constantly evolving, introducing new and more advanced technologies for wireless communications. With the existing wireless communication systems as a basis, next generation mobile communication technologies will be a key component of the so-called Networked Society and will help realizing the vision of substantially unlimited access to information and sharing of data anywhere and anytime.
By way of example, 5G is an important step in the evolution of mobile communications. To enable connectivity for a wide range of applications and use cases, the capabilities of the next generation wireless access must extend beyond previous generations of mobile communications. Most likely, this will be realized through the continued development of Long Term Evolution, LTE in combination with new 5G radio access technologies (also referred to as NX, NeXt generation). Key technology components may for example include extension to higher frequency bands, advanced multi-antenna transmission, and/or flexible spectrum usage.
However, it is not yet clear how these key technology components will be implemented and what the new radio access technologies will look like, while still being compatible or at least interoperable with existing mobile and wireless communication systems.
In fact, interoperability and/or interworking of different radio access technologies is a particularly interesting challenge in general.
There is thus a general demand for improved solutions in mobile and wireless communications technology.